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I’ve always loved cross-species friendships: the tiny kitten who snuggles with a Pit Bull, the horse who nuzzles a pig, that famous Ridgeback in South Africa who foster-mothered a baby lion. This says to me that love knows no boundaries— that love is simply Love. So even though I was standing there watching my dog Chloe flirt with an inanimate object, and worrying that she was less intelligent than her brethren, and basically making a fool of herself, I also told myself that didn’t matter. Whoever said love had anything to do with intelligence, anyway?

Finally, after receiving a particularly vigorous ankle bite from Chloe, Skipper finally toppled on top of her and then just lay there, on his side. Chloe, in response, sprung onto all fours—in that remarkably quick way dogs have— and proceeded to bite Skipper on the throat—another one of her favorite moves with Rainbow. But Skipper continued to lie there, unmoving.

“I used to date a man just like that,” one of the bookstore customers said. And we nearly died laughing.

This leads to a tangent: About a year ago, I developed a disturbing and all-consuming celebrity crush. I’m really not the celebrity type—I don’t watch TV or read magazines or even see all that many movies. And I certainly have never followed celebrity gossip. But in this case, I happened to meet the man in person, locked eyes with him (eyes as blue as the sea!) and experienced, well, a form of zap that stayed in my system for months. I won’t bore you with the web-trolling, image downloading, fan-site drooling details… (okay, it was Viggo Mortensen) but I will share with you the conversation I had with one of my friends, who’d had a similar obsession with Orlando Bloom. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of,” I remember her telling me. “This crush has awakened something in you. Since your divorce you’ve been kind of shut down toward men. You should be thankful that this person has brought back your capacity to love.”

“And lust,” I said.

“Oh, yes, that too.”

Anyway, seeing Chloe flirt happily and unabashedly with her fake-dog boyfriend made me think fondly of my own fake boyfriend, and of all the happy times we had together (in my head). It made me realize that it can just be so much fun to love someone. It almost doesn’t matter if he/she loves you back.

And what does this have to do with Rainbow? Nothing, really. We were totally over that cad.

When we got back to Woodstock, the first thing Chloe and I did was visit Rainbow. Their reunion was riotous. Leaping, chasing, biting, throwing themselves at one another. Rainbow brought Chloe one of his toys—a little rubber doll—and Chloe immediately stole it from him and then flaunted her triumph, tossing the toy in the air and refusing to let Rainbow have it. They chased each other around the pool, across the tennis court, in and around a grove of pine trees that bordered the land. They took turns tearing mock-savagely at one another’s scruffs; they bit each others’ rumps and ankles. They played until they were exhausted and too weak to stand up anymore. And even then, lying together on the rug at the hearth, they played, mouthing each other silently, clacking teeth. Finally, after another hour, they fell asleep entwined, their very breaths in sync.

As I watched them, I found myself filling with happiness again. And relief. It was clear that Chloe was still Rainbow’s favorite girlfriend. She had not been replaced. At least not at this instant. Plus, the thing about Dog Love is, there’s always plenty to go around.

I never told Greg’s family or Rainbow about the stuffed dog. Primarily because they would have made fun of me. Plus, Chloe’s brief affair was like any summer fling… fleeting, insignificant, all style no substance. So it was a private joke between me and my dog when we presented Rainbow with his reunion present: a stuffed black Lab.

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Lee Harrington is the author of the best-selling memoir, Rex and the City: A Woman, a Man, and a Dysfunctional Dog (Random House, 2006), and of the forthcoming novel, Nothing Keeps a Frenchman from His Lunch. emharrington.com